The present invention relates to devices for transporting objects from one processing station to another, the operations carried out at the two stations being separate and complementary and requiring different processing times. This is the case in particular for filling and stoppering bottles.
In this field of application, in the filling station a rotary apparatus is provided having a plurality of drawing-off spouts and being driven with a continuous rotational movement, so as to avoid in particular oscillation of the liquid at the surface of the bottles, and appropriate means for transferring the containers from the filling station to a fixed stoppering station.
A device of this type is known and has been commercialized by the Etablissements Larrieu-La Girondine (France) particularly under the name of Bretagne and Anjou groups. It comprises an endless chain or transporter on which supports for the containers freely rest, which, after passing under the filling or drawing-off spouts are conveyed by the chain under the single stoppering station, occupying a fixed position and the support carrying chain being driven with a continuous movement, a raising means raises the support carrying a filled container when it passes under the stoppering means and resets it on the chain, after stoppering.
In this known device, the supports for the containers rest between pusher dogs fixed to the chain and, after stoppering, the container is set down again in the free space between the dog which pushed it and the preceding support.
In this known device the supports must be spaced apart by at least a support, i.e. the filling stations must be spaced apart by at least twice what is necessary for the single filling operation. Thus, the driving speed of the chain is twice what is required and the increase of the distance especially causes an increase of the sizes of the associated parts, for example the drawing-off tanks, so an increase in manufacturing costs.